MSC: Zucchini Spice Cupcakes

We’re back with our second monthly bake-along for the Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes Club and, lucky me, I had the good fortune to select the recipe! The book has a ton of good seasonal and holiday recipes but September was a bit of a tricky month – not quite fall, but definitely heading in that direction. I went with the zucchini spice cupcakes, which seemed like a good compromise to me. They say “summer” because they make use of the abundance of zucchini so many people find themselves dealing with right now (for the record, I’m not one of those lucky people) but they also scream “fall” with their use of warm spices – cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves! Plus, cupcakes with veggies in them are healthy so we can eat more of them, right? Isn’t that how it works? 🙂

I hadn’t noticed when I made my selection, but this recipe is super simple. It doesn’t require a mixer and there’s no butter to bring to room temperature. I didn’t have any lemon zest so I threw in orange zest instead. I also skipped the walnuts because I’m not a huge fan. The batter seemed pretty thick when I was filling the tins, so I was a bit worried the cupcakes were going to be dense. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case at all. The cupcakes were fluffy and moist and so fragrant from the combination of spices!

The cupcakes are topped with a simple cream cheese frosting and wow, does Martha ever know how to make a delicious cream cheese frosting!! I loved everything about it, especially the texture. It was the perfect consistency for piping! It’s definitely my new go-to cream cheese frosting recipe – delicious and easy! I thought the cupcakes were great on their own, but slathered with some of the cream cheese frosting, they were perfection. I’m going to freeze some zucchini now so I can make these cupcakes again and again this fall and winter!

Thank you to our fearless leader, Betty, for all of her hard work to get this group up and running! I tend to be a bit of a cookbook slacker so I’m excited to know I will actually try all of the recipes in this book (so far, I’d say we’re 2-for-2!). Another big thanks to everyone who baked along with me this week! I hope you all liked the cupcakes as much as I did. If you did enjoy these cupcakes and have more zucchini you want to incorporate into treats, I highly recommend this chocolate zucchini cake I made a few weeks ago. It’s wonderful!

(*Betty has asked that we do not post the recipes from Martha’s book on our blogs and I’m happy to comply with her request. If you’d like to try the recipe before picking up the book, it is available on a number of other internet sites.)

(**Today is also a TWD day and I do plan to post about this week’s recipe – look for it later this afternoon!)

I love the look and the sound of these cupcakes. I’ve got squeezed shredded zucchini frozen, and now I’ll freeze some unsqueezed (yay! hate to squeeze zucchini dry) now for this recipe and the chocolate one.

Great pick this month, they were a big hit around here. It was fun baking these with you yesterday in our little twitter session…LOL. Yep, you fancied them all right, the swirl piping on these are great. Very impressive.

Thanks so much for making this selection! you’re photos are beautiful and the cakes look so yummy. Ok, you’re the 4th blog that mentions the super thick batter…Mine was very thin – apparently i did something wrong? perhaps because i grated the zucchini on a box grater? left the veg sort of ‘wet’ maybe thats why. here nor there, this was fun!

Your cupcakes look out of this world!! Great job! And I am soooo impressed with your piping. I have yet to master the art of piping. I bought all the tips and an instruction book, but somehow I can never get it to do what I want it to do!!! Thanks for a great pick this week!

Those cupcakes look nice and moist. I love the warm spices in carrot cake as well as zucchini cake. I love to use nutmeg, even if it’s not in the recipe. And always, and I reiterate, always, use freshly grated nutmeg. It just doesn’t compare to the pre-ground stuff you buy in jars. And if you have a microplane, it’s a breeze. 5 seconds and you’re done.

Your cupcakes look great! Would you believe I’ve had my food processor for a year and a half, and I just opened the grating blade tonight to make this recipe?! I have been missing out! Great pick! I really enjoyed making and eating these.